Alpha's Charmed Witch

1. Anouk

ONE

ANOUK

The potion is wrong.

I stare at the cauldron, watching the liquid churn in shades of deep violet when it should be a soft periwinkle. The color pulses like a bruise, too vivid, too alive. My fingers tighten on the stirring rod until the worn wood groans.

A simple calming draft. I’ve brewed this exact formula approximately four hundred and seventeen times in the past fifteen years. I could make it in my sleep. I have made it in my sleep.

It has never done this.

Dawn light filters through the high windows of my workroom, catching on the glass jars lining the shelves.

I used to be in control.

“You’re looking particularly aggressive today,” I tell the chamomile. My voice is the only sound in the shop besides the soft bubble of the ruined potion. The flowers bob in a draft that doesn’t exist. “I didn’t give you permission to bloom.”

The chamomile doesn’t respond. Plants rarely do.

But I keep talking to them anyway. Old habits. The silence of the shop weighs differently now—heavier, emptier, full of the absence of feathers and the soft clicking of an owl’s beak.

Corwin would have responded. A soft hoot. A ruffle of feathers. That particular way he had of looking at me that suggested I was being ridiculous and he was far too dignified to comment on it directly. After fifteen years, I could read every tilt of his head, every slow blink of his golden eyes.

Six months. Six months since I woke to find his perch empty, his warmth gone from my shoulder, fifteen years of partnership dissolved into nothing but memory and an ache behind my sternum that refuses to fade.

The healers said it was natural—familiars don’t live forever, they reminded me, as if I didn’t know.

As if the academic knowledge of inevitable loss somehow prepares you for the reality of it.

They didn’t mention the part where your magic comes unmoored. Where the anchor that kept your power steady and your spells precise simply… disappears. Where you spend six months pretending everything is fine while your control frays a little more each day.

The cauldron bubbles. The violet deepens to near-black.

Damn it.

I wave my hand over the cauldron, and the contents vanish in a wisp of lavender smoke. The scent lingers—too strong, too sweet, the magical signature of a potion that would have been three times more potent than intended. A calming draft that strong would put someone to sleep for a week.

A waste of perfectly good ingredients. The fourth batch this week that’s come out too strong, too wild, beyond all reckoning.

No one can know.

A coven leader does not have unstable magic. A coven leader does not admit weakness.

I will not let anyone see the cracks.

I straighten my spine. Smooth an imaginary wrinkle from my sleeve. Begin organizing my workstation with movements so precise they could be used to calibrate measuring instruments. Labels face forward. Ingredients align in perfect rows. Every jar exactly one inch from its neighbor.

Today is Mathilda’s funeral. I don’t have time for brewing failures.

The shop’s brass bell chimes. Not the front door—that melody is different, a bright three-note sequence I designed myself. This is the back entrance, the one only my staff uses, a lower tone meant to announce without alarming.

“Coven Leader Darkwater?”

My apprentice hovers in the doorway. Bryony is nineteen, eager, and possessed of an optimism that borders on concerning.

Her familiar—a perpetually unimpressed tabby cat named Thistle—is draped over her shoulders like a furry scarf, regarding me with the disdain only cats can truly master.

Bryony holds a paper cup like it’s a sacred offering.

“I brought you coffee.”

I accept the cup. My fingers wrap around the warmth automatically, years of courtesy ingrained deeper than thought. The first sip reveals a flavor profile that defies description—burnt sugar, bitter herbs, and what might be regret if regret had a taste.

“I’m experimenting with flavor combinations,” Bryony says brightly. Her smile could power the ward-lights for a week.

“What flavor is this?”

“I call it ‘Sunrise Ambition.’”

“It tastes like a cry for help in liquid form.”

“That’s the ambition part.” She beams. Thistle yawns, displaying impressive fangs.

I take another sip because I’m not a coward, and manners were drilled into me alongside potion theory by my grandmother, who firmly believed that politeness was a weapon sharper than any blade. Also, caffeine is caffeine, even when it comes wrapped in chaos and tastes like a flavor crime.

“Your dedication to innovation is noted.” I set the cup on my workstation where it can quietly be forgotten. “Perhaps we might apply it to areas where improvisation is less likely to result in emergency antidotes.”

Bryony’s smile doesn’t waver. Nothing sways Bryony’s smile.

I’ve seen her maintain it through a minor fire, three exploding potions, and the time Thistle knocked over an entire shelf of rare ingredients.

It’s both admirable and slightly alarming, the way she radiates cheerfulness in the face of all evidence that cheerfulness is unwarranted.

“I’ll manage the shop while you’re at the funeral. I’ve already restocked the calming drafts.” She pauses, concern flickering across her face. “The regular ones. From the stockroom.”

Good. She didn’t see today’s failures.

“Thank you, Bryony. Your competence is appreciated.”

She nods and retreats, Thistle’s tail swishing behind them. I watch her go, then turn to the chamomile, which has bloomed even more aggressively in the last few minutes.

“Stop that,” I tell it.

It doesn’t stop.

Time to bury an elder.

The funeral is held in the Elder Grove, a circle of ancient oaks on the eastern edge of The Hollow.

Mist curls around the trunks, denser than usual today—the old lore says it means strong magic nearby.

Or perhaps it’s just grieving too. Mistvale’s mist has always had a way of responding to the town’s moods.

The crowd gathers in a loose crescent around the ceremonial stone, their dark clothing a stark contrast against the silvery haze.

I count approximately seventy-three attendees—a respectable turnout for an elder.

Mathilda was well-liked, if not universally loved.

She had opinions. Firm ones. And she shared them freely, whether you wanted to hear them or not.

I stand at the ceremonial stone and face the gathered crowd. My robes are formal, traditional, the deep burgundy that marks coven leadership. Every crease is perfect. Every fold precisely arranged.

Elder Cordelia Ashworth catches my eye from the front row. She’s dressed in dove gray, her silver hair arranged in soft waves that frame a face designed to inspire trust. Her smile is warm, maternal, precisely calibrated to convey sympathy and support.

I don’t trust that smile. I’ve never been able to articulate why.

The ceremony is traditional. Words spoken in the old language.

Offerings of herbs and flowers placed on the stone.

The community’s magic rising in a collective murmur of farewell.

I deliver the eulogy with perfect composure—voice steady, phrases measured, every word chosen to honor without revealing.

Mathilda Thornwood served the coven for sixty-three years. She maintained our archives. Preserved our history. Asked questions no one else thought to ask.

Her death was attributed to natural causes—magical exhaustion, the healers said. Common enough in elderly witches.

I don’t believe it for a second.

I scan the crowd as I speak. Note who weeps and who performs weeping. Note who watches me with interest rather than grief. Note Cordelia’s hand pressed to her heart, her eyes glistening with tears that could be real or could be theater.

Note the wolf alpha standing at the edge of the gathering.

Caius Sternwolf is hard to miss. Even at a distance, he commands attention without trying. Tall, lean, silver threading through dark hair that went gray early. He wears black, simple and well-fitted, and he watches the proceedings with the focused stillness of a predator.

He’s watching me.

Our eyes meet across the gathered mourners. A jolt runs through me—sharp, unwelcome, the same reaction I’ve been suppressing for eight years. His gaze is steady.

I look away first. I always look away first.

It means nothing. He’s head of the Protection Network. It’s his job to observe. His job to assess threats. His job to attend functions where the coven leader speaks.

It has nothing to do with the way my magic stutters every time he’s nearby. Nothing to do with the way he left owl treats at my door after Corwin died, unsigned, unacknowledged, as if kindness could be anonymous.

Focus.

I finish the eulogy. The crowd disperses in small clusters, voices low, grief genuine or performed depending on the mourner.

I accept condolences with practiced grace—yes, such a loss, yes, she will be missed, yes, the coven endures—while a part of my mind catalogs every interaction, files every detail, searches for anything that doesn’t fit.

Mathilda was afraid of something. Someone.

And now she’s dead.

“Coven Leader Darkwater.”

Cordelia approaches, her expression arranged in lines of gentle concern. Up close, she smells of lilac and old books, the scent of someone who spends most of her time in archives and council chambers.

“Elder Ashworth.”

“A beautiful ceremony. Mathilda would have approved. You’ve been working so hard lately. The council has noticed.”

“I appreciate the council’s concern.”

“We worry, that’s all. A coven leader carries so much weight. It’s important to have support.” Her eyes search my face with what appears to be genuine warmth. “If you ever need to talk—about anything—my door is always open.”

“Thank you, Elder Ashworth. I’ll remember that.”

She smiles and moves away, collecting other mourners with the ease of long practice. I watch her go and feel the familiar prickle of unease I can never quite explain.